Full Bloom--December 8, 2023

Full Bloom--December 8, 2023

"I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." [1 Corinthians 1:4-9]

You know, it's funny--for as much as some Respectable Religious voices make it sound like Christianity is all about what happens after you die, the New Testament itself spends a lot of time and energy saying, "You have exactly what you need for living right now."

Now, that's not to say our faith doesn't also look ahead to God's future--it surely does, and therefore so do we.  But the way we look forward is different from merely wishing for a heavenly escape hatch.  We aren't just sitting on our hands or twiddling our thumbs.  We aren't just biding our time in this life, "just passing through" to get to the afterlife.  And we're not left to our own devices until some future day when we get to glory or Jesus comes back.  

No, the apostle Paul says that while we are waiting for "the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ," we already have all we need: "you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait."  And then he doubles down: this same Jesus "will also strengthen you to the end," and "in every way you have been enriched in him." That doesn't sound at all like we're just waiting to get to heaven or waiting for our "pie in the sky by and by."  It sounds, instead like we are waiting for the fullness of something that has already begun now.  It sounds like the one we are hoping for to come is also somehow already with us. 

Think of it a little like watching a flower grow from a seed or a bulb.  Pick your favorite--a dahlia or a daisy or a delphinium, or whatever.  Of course, you're anticipating the day when the buds open and the flower comes to full blossom, but even when it's just a pair of little leaves sprouting out of the soil, the plant has all that it will need to become that final blossom.  The plant's DNA has all the instructions it needs to help it grow and reach maturity, and that DNA is there even in the seed. The plant has all that it needs to become what it is meant to be, and it simply grows into what that DNA says.  The whole time when your flower is growing, you are looking forward to the future when the petals open, but all along the plant itself is already equipped with what it needs to grow and become its fullest self.  Your plant is a daisy all along, but you are waiting for the blossom to "reveal" that to the world, when the bud opens up and everyone can see what kind of flower it has been all along.

It's that language of "revealing" that Paul uses.  What we are waiting for is not for an absent Jesus to come back (as if we are alone and on our own in the mean-time), but for the victory of the already-present Jesus to be revealed.  We are waiting for the fullness to come, but in the mean-time we have the gifts we need for growing and thriving.  The Christian story is NOT that God has vanished up to some distant heaven like an absentee landlord while we are left abandoned and waiting for God to decide to come back to check on us.  Rather, the good news is that the God for whom we wait is also the God who waits with us, and the same Christ whose reign will be revealed has brought us into his kingdom already now.  We look toward the future, while we discover we have been given what we need for the present, too--like watching the leaves grow and buds form while you look forward to the flowers coming to full bloom.

Today, it is certainly good and right for us to hope for Jesus' coming in glory that makes all things new.  But think of it like waiting for a flower that is already growing to finally open--and know that we have Jesus' gifts within us already, while we wait for them to blossom and fill all creation.

Lord Jesus, help us to recognize the gifts you have placed in our hands already while we hope for the day your glory is revealed to all the world.